Visuals: STUNNING
Soundtrack: BEAUTIFUL
Lara: QUEEN

Closest any game has come to feeling like Classic Tomb Raider since the 90s.

Lara Croft has made a huge comeback thanks to 2013’s Tomb Raider reboot. With her spin-off top down series, Lara was bound to find her way onto the mobile market. Feeding off the success of Hitman GO, Square Enix takes another popular franchise and ups the ante on the GO series. With fantastically designed puzzles, great graphics, and easy controls, Lara Croft GO is the best mobile game released this year.

If you played Hitman GO you will be in familiar territory. The levels are comprised of squares that Lara moves along, these squares have dots on them so you know which ones you can land on. There are various puzzles that will make you really think before advancing to the next level. From pulling switches, avoiding enemies, killing enemies, moving platforms, moving stone pillars and various other gameplay tidbits. It’s not just as easy as pull this switch over here and that switch and be done. Enemies play a huge role in this game and the movement is key here. Every time Lara moves a space so does an enemy. You must line up your moves to avoid the enemy or go around them. The puzzles are brillantly laid out here and will constantly keep you in check.

The game also felt progressively balanced in difficulty. I started off clearing levels quickly and then slowly had to start thinking. Once I thought I had mastered certain gameplay elements another was thrown at me and made me think all over again. I can’t stress enough at how well these puzzles are designed; they feel like they were made with care and delicate thought in each and every square. In between solving puzzles there are hidden vases throughout the level and hold gems which will unlock outfits for Lara if all are found in the level.

The game is also quite a decent length. It took me a good two weeks to finish the game and there is replay value here. Throughout the whole game I never felt like it was impossible or too hard. It was always something that stared me right in the face and when I figured out the puzzles slowly I had a lot of “Aha!” moments which are so satisfying. Some puzzles I really had to work on and some were quite easy, but the easy ones in between keep it from getting too frustrating.

The graphics in Lara Croft GO are beautiful papercraft models with great lighting effects and high quality textures. This is a high-end mobile game at its finest and I firmly believe every Tomb Raider or puzzle fan must own this. I hope to see more games in the GO series as they are addictive and so wonderfully crafted. This is a hidden gem and an oasis among awful and ugly free to play games.

Applying the Hitman GO concept to the Tomb Raider saga, Lara Croft GO is a bold attempt to turn the exploration shooter into a turn-based puzzle game. The idea is probably already stranger than with its predecessor, but it definitely – and somewhat – hits the mark. The title relies heavily on cycles and the player only has to understand how they work: in this respect, backward-thinking is particularly put to use. Nevertheless, the development team has done a very solid job, cleverly setting up false leads. So even in the first three worlds, the sense of achievement is still there, despite the low difficulty. Things take a different turn in the final world and the much more challenging side campaigns. While mechanically the game is particularly solid, it's unfortunate that the search for collectibles is so uninteresting; the hunt is even less enjoyable as the loading times feel a little too long compared to what they should be. Lara Croft GO is an enjoyable puzzle game, which manages to achieve an decent synthesis between the GO formula and the traditional Tomb Raider universe, even though the concept seems aberrant at first glance.

Lara Croft Go takes what was good about the formula of turn-based action from Hitman Go and adds more action and adventure. The puzzle format translates well to climbing – in fact, I think that the deathtraps and careful movement required in LCG make its climbing more interesting than in a lot of the mainline series. That’s some of the magic of the Go games: by turning everything into a puzzle component, overall gameplay design becomes more thoughtful and inspired. Creativity under constraint. Now, if only fewer puzzles seemed to rely so much on the reset button, or if there were multiple solutions available to some puzzles. Then the Go series would really be cooking with gas.

Lara Croft Go is a very relaxing puzzle game that many will enjoy if you like this style of game. In some ways, this game is a return to the classic Tomb Raider games where it was more about the puzzles and exploring then the action combat. The game has strategic, turn-based gameplay as you move your character as if it was a game of chess. When you take one move forward the world will react as the enemies will all move a step as well. As someone who isn't a massive fan of puzzles in games, I actually really enjoyed this game as it has a relaxing feel to it and the excellent soundtrack helps with that as it has a lot of soothing tracks that really make you feel calm as you play. There are also vases to find around the levels which if you break you can collect gems or pieces of a statue that you can combine to get costume unlocks. The alternate costumes are cool as you can get a Lara version of another character's outfit from another Square Enix game and also get costumes from the classic Tomb Raider games.

The puzzles as well are well designed as its challenging enough to make you think, but not so difficult to the point where it's frustrating. My only complaint with the game is how you have to use the analogue stick on the controller to move Lara which can lead to many deaths as sometimes she won't move in the direction you want her to or too far to the point where she walks right into an enemy or hazard which is instant death. I feel this could have been mitigated if they gave you the option to move Lara with the D-pad instead, but unfortunately, there is no controller option for that. But overall this is a fun puzzle game that fans of this genre or the classic Tomb Raider games might enjoy!

Trophy Overview Section:
The game is generally easy, as the game has an optional hint system which will guide you through a level if you get stuck. Unlike Hitman GO, you can use this without the fear of not getting the platinum trophy. There is also a chapter select so going back to get the missing vases are easy enough. My general advice is to just look around every corner of a level as the camera shifts focus, as some vases are easily seen, but others are hidden quite well.

All levels beaten with all gems/artifacts collected; 16/16 achievements unlocked. I've been playing this on-and-off over the course of a few months and finally decided to knuckle down and get the game finished. I've previously completed Hitman GO Definitive Edition (on PS4) and Lara Croft GO presents a similar turn-based puzzle experience, challenging the player to navigate Lara successfully through a hazard-filled environment using a board game-style network of spaces to move between. While the core mechanics are simple, focusing on movement, manipulating blocks/switches and attacking the occasional enemy monster, they're used effectively to create puzzles that are satisfying to solve and, by the end of the game, become deceptively difficult at times (especially in the Shard of Light expansion). There's some nicely atmospheric music and well-designed graphics - attractive, but not overly complex, appropriate to the mobile nature of the game. I'll definitely be looking to move on to Deus Ex GO before too long after enjoying my time here.

As a separate yet related anecdote before the review begins, I want to talk about this series' developer studio, Square Enix Montreal, for a bit. Most of you have most likely learned this, but last year in May, Embracer Group entered into an agreement to acquire it, Crystal Dynamics, and Eidos Montreal from Square, which they succeeded in doing in August. The studio even decided to do a rebranding as a way to acclimatize the situation. Just three months after that, Embracer announced it was closing the studio down in favor of AAA investment affecting a few hundred people, and later on the studio announced four of their games were gonna get delisted from the mobile stores. You know the song and dance by now, shit like this fuckin sucks, DOUBLY so for the smartphone gaming market since its state is more precarious and wayward due to their inherently digital nature. I dunno if the other SEM/Onoma titles will get hit with the same fate since they're still up and available on other stores, but I figured to give this as a word of caution in case you are or will become interested in any of them in the future.

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You remember those GO titles Hitman, Tomb Raider, and Deus Ex got? I'm vaguely aware of this diorama-framed puzzle set of games due to seeing them here and there, but have yet to really dive since I wanted to at least do more of their mainline titles... which I've done with Tomb Raider not that long ago! Makes for a nice warm up and refresh from my burnout before diving back into the thick of it again.

As stated, this is a puzzle game where the gameplay has you moving Lara around one notch at a time, planning then reacting to circumstances involving enemies, switches, pillars, what have you. If you play this on PC like I do, you can use either a control or the mouse, and I stuck with the latter which worked fine enough. It responds to what my cursor was doing splendidly, but well, the main moving function has you clicking then dragging the mouse, let go of left click, then Lara will move. Kind of awkward, and I rather prefer just clicking on the notches instead, but it is what it is. Presentation usually gets the most amount of praise from these games, and with good reason. The use of foreground environments and background shadows to convey scenery and invoke wonder is downscaled yet similar to what was available in the main series proper, even as far back as the PS1 days. There's always a sense that each new book (effectively the equivalent to a world) adds onto the mysticism of the lite narrative and events, made even better with how much the game is nudging you to face down enemies instead of hobbling away from them in order to activate stuff to move on. On top of the aesthetics themselves being so wonderful to look at and see in action, the team did a great job translating the fundamentals onto this format.

Now, take all of what I said... and barely translate it into the mechanics proper. I dunno, I wouldn't say it's an entirely easy puzzle game since I got stumped a few times, but it's also quite telling that the time I felt like I was consistently challenged was in its two bonus books, one of which was developed in collaboration with Ko_op who are known for GNOG and the upcoming Goodbye Volcano High. Cave Of Fire utilizes a revitalization system for the enemies which leads to more creative solves, and Mirror Of Spirits does the 'dual world of you and the shadow' approach which are always a treat, settled in Croft Manor and similarly does it with more thought and engaging ruminations. The main package itself is... fine? The escalation aspect is there, but it feels bare, never really spreading its wings or incorporate more intricate systems and layouts across the runtime until near the very end. Once you see the type of mechanics shown in one level, there's a good chance it's gonna stay for the whole ride with little innovation done to entice the following layouts, with exception to the torches and boulders having multiple use cases in order to solve an ordeal, or crumbling floors to make the best use of the reactive elements this offers. Now, I can handle a puzzler that decides to center on the lax side than an involved one, but the low dopamine hit from each solved conundrum doesn't bode well considering this is all that's available. The collectibles being akin to treasures and relics are welcome, and I like being rewarded with outfits from across the series, and even an adequately tied set of Hitman, DE, and Just Cause attire plus the silly Midas Touched Croft look, but I wouldn't mind an extra set of levels for a job well done.

I suppose this bears fruit to the discussion of the type of expectations to set, since this is a mobile title first and foremost instead of an at-home console or PC one. In that regard, I can see this tickling the fancy more, but even then I can't help but wonder that an opportunity was missed, especially considering how many other cross-platform puzzle titles are available like (from what I hear) the Layton games or (what I've actually played) the Monument Valley duology. Probably doesn't help that not only did I finish and enjoy Looney Tunes Sheep Raider not that long ago, but I also played a fair bit of Baba Is You prior which so far has been tickling my fancy tenfold. To be clear and in complete fairness to LCGO, I did have some fun with it, and I appreciate both its outings and its approach on what it's doing to try out Hitman GO when I get the chance to do so. I just wish more was done on the formula in a way that appeases me. At least it makes for an easy 100% trophy run?

LAST TIME: TOMB RAIDER UNDERWORLD / BENEATH THE ASHES & LARA'S SHADOW

NEXT TIME: TOMB RAIDER II